Sunday, 29 November 2009

Wet and windy Sunday

When the brainstorm hit and I somehow found myself buying another knitting machine, I had various ideas for the assessories that I needed. I wanted a lace carriage and an intarsia carriage, but decided against having a knit radar. From what I remembered of them, they were large and the paper patterns took up a lot of room. Room that I did not have. I thought, thats ok there are plenty of written patterns out there, and I am bound to find the one I want. Ummm seemed sensible at the time. I then discovered that most of the cones of yarn that I had inherited along with the old machines, was mostly unlabled. I could of course make a guess at the ply and content, but this was not very accurate. Even tension squares do not come up the same as the written pattens all the time. So I needed some form of patterning device. I searched ebay and found some called Knitware on disc.
As by now I was bored with knitting hats, I needed a bigger challenge. So after many months I actually loaded the disc on my computer and had a play. I found a shape I wanted to use and put in the details. I then printed it off before saving. I am so pleased I have done this as when I went to find it again, I couldn't. Oh well at least I have the printed out version.
I didn't want to be too ambitious, so decided to start with an easy A line cardigan. It has turned out quite well, though I have not done the bands yet. At least it fits.

The only problem is that I have in mind to do a cardi with rounded bottoms like a boloro, and this program does not give an option for that. So I am still wondering whether to actually try and get a knit radar and draw my own, or if there might be another program that I can use. Back to ebay to have a look.

2 comments:

I've used Knitware a few times lately and I think it's great.A couple of times I have found that their numbers don't add up but it's never been a big problem. I'll maybe end up knitting a couple of rows more or less than the pattern says but it's not enough to be noticable.